Radio Controller System And Method For Remote Devices

ABSTRACT

A system and method for remote device control are disclosed. A system incorporating teachings of the present disclosure may include a radio controlled toy and a controller for controlling the toy. In some embodiments, the controller may have an input mechanism and a housing component that defines a cavity, within which may be located a wireless wide area transceiver and a wireless local area transceiver. Some controllers may also have an operating system for the controller and an application resident on the controller and operable to convert inputs received via the input mechanism into commands for the toy. The controller may have a microprocessor operable to execute the application and to cause the commands to be communicated to the toy using the wireless local area transceiver.

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/815,208, filed Jul. 31, 2015, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/063,779, filed Oct. 25, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No.9,457,286, issued Oct. 4, 2016, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/590,656, filed Aug. 21, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No.8,600,304, issued Dec. 3, 2013, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/767,336, filed Apr. 26, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No.8,275,317, issued Sep. 25, 2012, which is a continuation of Ser. No.11/970,180, filed Jan. 7, 2008, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,734,254, issued Jun.8, 2010, which is a continuation of Ser. No. 10/652,580, filed Aug. 29,2003, the content of all of which is hereby incorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The following disclosure relates to remote device controllers, and moreparticularly to a system and method for controlling remote devices withradio waves.

BACKGROUND

Generally speaking, a radio wave is an electromagnetic wave propagatedby an antenna. Radio waves can have different frequencies. Tuning areceiver to a specific frequency allows the receiver to pick up orlisten to the waves or signals propagated at that specific frequency.

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC)governs which frequencies may be used and for what purposes. In effect,the FCC has divided the radio frequencies into frequency bands orspectrums and issues licenses to entities desiring to use thosefrequency bands.

Common frequency bands include the following: AM radio—535 kilohertz(KHz) to 1.7 megahertz (MHz); Short wave radio—bands from 5.9 MHz to26.1 MHz; Citizens band (CB) radio—26.96 MHz to 27.41 MHz; FM radio—88MHz to 108 MHz; and Television stations—174 to 220 MHz for channels 7through 13.

Though there are some unlicensed spectrums, many wireless devices havetheir own band. Garage door openers operate around 40 MHz. Baby monitorsoperate around 49 MHz. Many relatively simple radio controlled (RC) toysoperate at either 27 MHz or 49 MHz, which represent frequenciesallocated by the FCC for basic consumer items. Advanced RC models, suchas the more sophisticated RC airplanes and RC cars may use 72-MHz or75-MHz frequencies, respectively.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a system incorporating teachings of the presentdisclosure for remotely controlling a toy blimp.

FIG. 2 depicts a cut away view of a cellular telephone incorporatingteachings of the present disclosure in order to act as a remote controlfor electronic devices.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As mentioned above, radio waves may have different frequencies, andtuning a receiver to a specific frequency allows the receiver to pick upor listen to the waves or signals propagated at that specific frequency.

Many of the most common wireless devices available today have anassigned spectrum. Garage door openers operate around 40 MHz. Babymonitors operate around 49 MHz. And, many relatively simple radiocontrolled (RC) toys operate at either 27 MHz or 49 MHz, frequenciesallocated by the FCC for basic consumer items. Advanced RC models, suchas the more sophisticated RC airplanes and RC cars may use 72-MHz or75-MHz frequencies, respectively.

In simple terms, radio controlled toys and devices may have four mainparts: (1) a controller—the controller may be held in your hands tocontrol the toy or device and sends radio waves or RF signals to thereceiver; (2) a receiver—usually an antenna and circuit board associatedwith the toy or device that may receive the signals from the controllerand activate motors or other controllable features as commanded by thecontroller; (3) a motor or actuator—the motor/actuator may turn wheels,steer the vehicle, operate propellers, etc.; and (4) power sources forthe controller end of the system and for the toy and associatedcomponents.

As explained above in the brief description of the figures, FIG. 1illustrates a system 10 incorporating teachings of the presentdisclosure for remotely controlling a toy blimp 12. As depicted, system10 includes among other things blimp 12 and controller 14, which may beembodied in a cellular telephone or other suitable device. For example,controller 14 may be implemented with several other types of computingdevices like a laptop, a personal computer, a personal digital assistant(PDA), a smartphone, a wireless hub or gateway with sufficient computingpower, etc.

As shown in FIG. 1, controller 14 has several input mechanisms includingkeypad 16 and toggle disk 18. Controller 14 may also include amicrophone assembly operable to receive voice commands, a mouse, or atouch screen for receiving inputs from a stylus. In the embodiment ofFIG. 1, keypad 16 and toggle disk 18 are located at an outer surface ofcontroller 14. The outer surface of controller 14 and the cavity formedtherein may be at least partially defined by one or more housingcomponents like front panel 20.

Depending on the embodiment deployed, controller 14 may have any ofseveral components located within its cavity. For example, controller 14may have a wireless wide area transceiver, a wireless local areatransceiver, a microprocessor, and a memory all located within thecavity. In some embodiments, the memory may hold an application that isoperable to convert inputs received via any or all of controller 14'svarious input mechanisms into commands for blimp 12. The same ordifferent application may also be operable to initiate communication ofthe commands using the wireless local area transceiver or the wirelesswide area transceiver. In some embodiments, controller 14 may be capableof controlling several different RC toys or devices.

Though FIG. 1 depicts system 10 as including blimp 12 as the radiocontrollable toy, other toys and/or electronic devices and appliancesmay work within system 10. For example, other toys could includeautomobiles, airplanes, helicopters, boats, submarines, animals, robots,etc. Other devices could include kitchen and household appliances,consumer electronics equipment like stereos and televisions, vehicles,automobiles, or surveillance system components.

As mentioned above, controller 14 may include any of several differentcomponents. For example, controller 14 may have a wireless wide areatransceiver, which may be part of a multi-device platform forcommunicating data using RF technology across a large geographic area.The platform may be a GPRS, EDGE, or 3GSM platform, for example, and mayinclude multiple integrated circuit (IC) devices or a single IC device.Similarly, controller 14 may have a wireless local area transceiver,which may communicate using spread-spectrum radio waves in a 2.4 GHzrange, 5 GHz range, or other suitable range. The wireless local areatransceiver may also be part of a multi-device or single device platformand may facilitate communication of data using low-power RF technologyacross a smaller geographic area. For example, if the wireless localarea transceiver includes a Bluetooth transceiver, the transceiver mayhave a communication range having approximately a one hundred footradius. If the wireless local area transceiver includes an 802.11transceiver, such as an 802.11(b) or Wi-Fi transceiver, the transceivermay have a communication range having approximately a one thousand footradius. One skilled in the art will also recognize that the wirelesslocal area transceiver and the wireless wide area transceiver may beseparate or part of the same chipset. For example, controller 14'schipset may package Bluetooth, 802.11(b), and a GSM cellular technology,like GPRS, into a single chipset.

As depicted in FIG. 1, controller 14 may also include a display device22, which may be operable to present a graphical user interface (GUI) 24to a user. In some embodiments of system 10, blimp 12 may include animage-capturing device such as camera lens 26 and camera lens 28. Asshown, camera lens 26 may have digital zoom capability and camera lens28 may be a fisheye lens. Occasionally, a user of system 10 may desireto have the image data captured by blimp 12 communicated to controller14. In such an embodiment, blimp 12 may include a transceiver 30 with anassociated memory 31. Transceiver 30, which may have wide-area and/orlocal-area capabilities, may be operable to send data representingimages captured by lens 26 and/or 28 to controller 14 for presentationwithin GUI 24 on display device 22. In an embodiment like system 10,where blimp 12 has at least two lenses, controller 14 may have a displaymanager that facilitates the presentation of the different images beingcaptured by different lenses. The display manager may be a softwareapplication executing on controller 14. As shown in FIG. 1, GUI 24depicts an image 32 and a camera indicator 34. Camera indicator 34 letsthe user know that the image being displayed, image 32, isrepresentative of the image being captured by a specific lens—in thedepicted case, LENS 1. FIG. 2 depicts an embodiment in which twodifferent images are being displayed simultaneously, though in separatedisplay panes, on a controller display device.

During operation of system 10, controller 14 may receive an input from auser (not shown) that directs operation of a controllable feature ofblimp 12. For example and in addition to transceiver 30, blimp 12 mayhave a motor 36 that drives propeller 38 and an actuator 40 for turningrudder 42. One skilled in the art will recognize that blimp 12 as wellas other controllable devices may have more, less, or differentcontrollable features.

In response to a received input, a component of controller 14 mayinitiate communication of data that represents the input to blimp 12. Insome embodiments, the communication may occur over an infrared link. Asshown in FIG. 1, the communication may occur over RF link 44, which mayutilize a local area wireless technology. The communication may bereceived by transceiver 30 and converted into commands for motor 36and/or actuator 40. Transceiver 30 may also send image data representingimages captured by lens 26 back to controller 14 across RF link 44. Assuch, controller 14 may receive the image data and display an image,like image 32, which may be derived from the image data.

In some embodiments, controller 14 may save the image data so that itmay be converted into an animated sequence by an animator application.In other embodiments, controller 14 may communicate the saved image dataas an attachment to an electronic mail message. For example, ifcontroller 14 is operable as a smartphone and capable of communicatingvoice calls and data calls, a user of controller 14 may elect to sharethe image data with a friend via a wide area cellular network using, forexample, wide area RF link 46. The user may also elect to have one orboth of RF link 44 and RF link 46 include encrypted communications.

In an embodiment where controller 14 is operable as a telephone, thetelephone may be executing a local software application to allow thetelephone to receive a user input and to convert the input into acommand—allowing the phone to act as a controller. In such anembodiment, controller 14 may include a computer-readable medium havingcomputer-readable data to direct a wireless telephone processor tointerpret user inputs into data for controlling a radio controlleddevice, to initiate communication of the data, to recognize datareceived from the radio controlled device as image data, and to initiatepresentation of a rendering of the image data on a display device likedisplay 22.

Occasionally, a controller application may reside on controller 14 fromthe moment an original user acquires controller 14. As such, a user maypower on controller 14, which may present the user with GUI 24 ondisplay 22. The user may then be able to launch the controllerapplication for controlling blimp 12 by selecting an icon presented onGUI 24. At which point, the user may be able to input commands intocontroller 14 for controlling blimp 12. For example, a user may pivottoggle disk 18 to “tell” blimp 12 to move one direction or another. Auser may depress keys on keypad 16 to “tell” blimp 12 to accelerate orto send an image from lens 26.

In some cases, the application may be part of a file, which may notoriginally reside on controller 14. For example, a user may purchase anew electronic device, like blimp 12, a security system, a kitchenappliance, a television, etc. The user may want to control the devicewith a cellular telephone, but the telephone may not have an appropriateapplication loaded thereon. In such circumstances, the user may elect tohave the telephone or other controller device attempt to communicatewith the new electronic device using a local area RF link, like RF link44. The controller, for example controller 14, may be able to determinethat a controller file associated with the new electronic device isavailable and that the controller may be able to retrieve and store inmemory the controller file. In such an embodiment, controller 14, whichat one point may not have been capable of communicating commands to anelectronic device, may become controller capable. Receiving the fileitself may involve over the air downloading of a Java application. Thecontroller file or application received by controller 14 may reside in amemory local to the electronic device. For example, the file may residein a memory associated with transceiver 30 of blimp 12. In such acircumstance, the controller file may be received across a local area RFlink, like RF link 44.

In other embodiments, the controller file may be associated with aspecific electronic device but reside at a network location remote fromthe electronic device. For example, the controller file may reside in arepository like repository 48, which may be accessible to controller 14.In such an embodiment, a user may input at controller 14 an identifierfor blimp 12. The identifier may include, for example, a product brandand part number or any other effective identifier. In other embodiments,a new electronic device may communicate its identification informationto controller 14 without user intervention. For example, controller 14may include a Bluetooth module that sniffs for other Bluetooth-enableddevices. If it identifies blimp 12 as a Bluetooth-enabled device,controller 14 may engage in a process to “automatically” register withblimp 12, during which blimp 12 may communicate to controller 14 someidentification information. During this process, blimp 12 may also beable to determine the types of applications that controller 14 isequipped to run. For example, blimp 12 may be locally storing Javaapplications, BREW applications, or others. Each of these applicationsmay come in different forms—one better suited for a Palm OS and anotherbetter suited for a Symbian OS. If Blimp 12 determines whichapplication/OS combination controller 14 prefers, blimp 12 may scheduleand/or identify the correct application/OS for downloading to controller14.

If the user, either actively or transparently, acquires identificationinformation for the new electronic devices, the user may then usecontroller 14 or some other appropriate computing device to retrieve thecontroller file associated with the new electronic device.

For example, a user may employ controller 14 to retrieve an appropriatecontroller file from repository 48 by communicating through a series ofcommunicative links. These links may include, for example, communicationbetween controller 14 and cellular communication tower 50 across RF link46, communication between cellular communication tower 50 with itsassociated computing device 52 and geographically disperse communicationnetwork 54 across link 56, and communication between network 54 andrepository 48 across link 58. One skilled in the art will recognize thatcommunication network 54 may include private and/or public networks, theInternet, other Internet Protocol (IP) networks, or some other networkoperable to interconnect remote nodes.

Though controller 14 and blimp 12 have been described in some detail, itshould be clear that other features could be included in system 10. Forexample, blimp 12 or some other controlled device may include a speakerassembly (not shown), which may allow a user to supply a sound tocontroller 14 and have the sound projected from the speaker assembly.Blimp 12 may also include a processor or logic operable to determinesignal strength of the signals received by transceiver 30 and todetermine a direction from which the signals arrived. With this strengthand direction information, blimp 12 may be able to determine that it isapproaching the edge of controller 14's communication range and blimp 12may also know the direction it needs to move to be closer to controller14. In another embodiment, blimp 12 or some other controlled device mayinclude a global positioning system (GPS) component. The GPS componentmay facilitate the above-described return to range feature. The GPScomponent may also be used to facilitate other features.

As mentioned above, controller 14 of system 10 may include a Javaapplication. In some embodiments, the Java application may have beendownloaded over the air and may be executing on controller 14'soperating system (OS), which may be a Symbian OS, Pocket PC,Linux-based, a Palm OS, or other suitable computing device OS.

As an example of one potential application/OS combination, a developermay decide to develop a Java-based controller application for a SymbianOS-based computing device. The process of developing a Java applicationfor the Symbian platform may include three main steps: (1) developingthe Java code and supporting files, sound graphics, etc. which may, insome cases, be tested on an emulator; (2) creating the files to deploythe application to a Symbian interface so that it has a GUI icon and canbe run from a native interface; and (3) packaging the applicationelements in a release file.

Development of a Symbian platform application in Java may look like thestandard Java development path of creating the appropriate class filesand packaging them into JARS. Preferably, Symbian classes are used. Oncethis has been done the application may be tested by running it in theemulator. Some versions of the Symbian platform may have a visual toolcalled AIF Builder that also includes an Icon Editor.

With AIF Builder, a developer may create: (1) an Application InformationFile which defines the application, its caption, and icon file; (2) atext file defining the application's additional class path; and (3) aSymbian proprietary multiple bit map format file for the applicationIcons. Once installed on an emulator, the application may be run. If anicon was developed, it may be displayed on the emulator. A single tap onthe icon should launch the application. Other development tools may alsobe available. For example, CodeWarrior Wireless Studio is part of acomprehensive portfolio of wireless development tools from Metrowerksthat includes support for Java Card technology, J2SE, J2ME and PersonalJava Platforms. CodeWarrior may also work for Symbian OS and Palm OS.

Whatever the tool, a developer may want to have features such as codedebuggers, code obfuscation and optimization. Developers may also wantthe tool to facilitate the targeting of a wide variety of platforms bysupporting and adapting to multiple virtual machines (VMs) and softwaredevelopment kits (SDKs).

Developers may also want access to a Java-based relational databasedesigned specifically for wireless Java and the ability to getguaranteed delivery (device-to-server, device-to-device,server-to-device) even when a network disconnect or shadow occurs.Message content with some tools can be Text, XML, SOAP, images, binary,Java objects, etc. Messages can be transmitted through standard wirelessnetworks including GSM-Data, CDMA, CDPD, GPRS, UMTS, WLAN, SMS, WAP,Bluetooth, and other bearers.

Smart client applications may be written in Java and run on a wide rangeof devices. For a smart client application with Java on the clientdevice, there may be two preferred options of Java platforms: Java 2Standard Edition (J2SE) and Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). Applicationsbased on J2SE are often standalone Java applications, usually usingPersonal Java. Personal Java is a subset of J2SE with a smaller JavaRuntime Environment (JRE) suitable for the limited storage capacity ofhand-held computing devices. Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) based on J2SEmay be available for a wide variety of client devices including PocketPC, Symbian OS, Linux and Palm OS devices.

In some embodiments, a controller file or application may be based on asmaller version of the java platform, like MIDP, that is often aimed atsmall footprint devices like cellular handsets. Java applications thatrun on MIDP devices are called MIDlets, and a MIDlet suite is a groupingof MIDlets that can share resources at runtime. A suite usually includesat least two separate files. The first may be a Java ApplicationDescriptor (JAD), which may be a file that tells the ApplicationManagement Software (AMS), the piece of software on the hardwareresponsible for managing J2ME applications, how to handle the controllerapplication. The JAD file may provide instructions for, among otherthings, installation, identification, and retrieval. The second may be aJava Archive (JAR), which may be a collection of the controllerapplication's compiled byte classes, resources, and manifest files.

Occasionally and as mentioned above, a user may want to download thecontroller application Over The Air (OTA), which may be facilitated ifthe application's JAR and JAD files are available from a Web server-likeenvironment. As such, users may be able to “HTTP” their way to the URLwhere the JAD file resides. In preferred embodiments, a controllerdevice-side browser may download the controller application into theApplications folder and test it. This OTA procedure may take some timein a wide area environment experiencing reception difficulties.

In practice, a developer or electronic device manufacturer may place theJAR and JAD files in a place that is accessible. When accessing therepository, which may be remote or local, containing the controller JARand JAD files with the controller computing device, a user may find thatthe JAD file is delivered to the phone as a text file. This may indicatethat the repository is not properly configured. Specific MIME types mayneed to be associated with the “jar” and “jad” extensions so that therepository can tell the controller the kind of content to expect. Inpreferred embodiments, once the download process is complete, thecontroller MIDlet is deposited into the generic Applications directoryand prompts the user to run the application.

As described above, there may be two files required for provisioning thecontroller application, the JAR and JAD. The JAD file may allow thedeveloper to describe the controller application by specifying theminimum requirements for running the application, how many MIDlets arepart of the suite, dependencies, etc. The JAD file may be used toprovide information about the application without requiring the user todownload the entire JAR. This may save the user some download time.

In many cases, the JAD file may be a simple text file with an attributeskey, a colon, an optional space, and the value for that attribute. Asdescribed above, controller applications and other smart clientapplications may be written in some cases for devices with certaincapabilities and some local storage capacity, such as personal digitalassistants (PDAs), smartphones, and laptops.

In operation, a user may own an electronic device, like a television,and want to control the television or some feature associated therewithfrom the user's wireless telephone. If the television has an associatedcontroller file or an application for allowing the wireless telephone toact as a remote control, the user may download the controller file tothe user's phone. In preferred embodiments, the wireless telephone mayhave received the file and may be executing a controller applicationincluded in the file. The user may be presented with a GUI-basedindication that the phone is in television controller mode, and the usermay be allowed to control the television with the phone. In effect, auser may not need to worry about “losing the remote”. To locate theremote, the user may simple need to download the controller to anappropriate computing device.

Though the above example describes a television, the controlled devicemay take several different forms. It may be a toy, like blimp 12, anautomobile, or some other object having an electronic component capableof being remotely controlled. For example, some automobiles haveelectronic locks that may be unlocked remotely using a cellular service,like OnStar. With such a service, a user may find her self locked out ofa car. The user makes a telephone call to a remote call center thatsends an unlock signal to a cellular communication device embedded inthe automobile.

A system incorporating teachings of the present disclosure may replacethe two cellular calls and the need for an embedded cellularcommunication device with a peer-to-peer connection between theautomobile (or some component of the automobile) and the user's cellulartelephone (acting as a controller). In preferred embodiments, an unlockfeature like the one described above or any other feature could includea password or authentication utility. The utility may include a simpleuser name/password log in or may be more complex and include additionallevels of authentication like bio-identification such as speech, retinalor thumb print scans.

A technique incorporating teachings of the present disclosure may alsobe employed to make configuration of electronic devices transparent. Auser may not want to remotely control a device, but the user may needthe device to “register” with the user's local network. If the user buysa smart refrigerator capable of connecting to the Internet, the user maywant the device to auto-configure with a local network gateway device,such as a wireless networking hub with broadband backhaul capability.The backhaul may be fixed wireless, cable, xDSL, etc. The user's phoneor the network gateway device may find the new refrigerator, recognizethat the refrigerator has an associated controller file to facilitatenetwork registration, download the file, and use the file totransparently integrate the refrigerator into the local network.

A more detailed picture of a computing device that may be operable as acontroller executing a controller application is shown in FIG. 2. Asdescribed above in the brief description of the figures, FIG. 2 depictsa cut away view of a cellular telephone 60 incorporating teachings ofthe present disclosure in order to act as a remote control forelectronic devices. In the depicted embodiment, telephone 60 includesseveral integrated circuits on a circuit board, an antenna 62, and aliquid crystal display 64 presenting a composite image 67.

The components of telephone 60 could include any of several combinationsof components. As depicted, telephone 60 includes a wide area wirelessplatform 66, which may be, for example, a GPRS module. As shown,platform 66 includes a wide area wireless transceiver 68, front endcircuitry 70, and dual core processor 72. Front end circuitry 70 mayhelp ensure that the baseband electronics will work well withtransceiver 68. Dual core processor 72 may include, for example, aDigital Signal Processing (DSP) core as well as RISC or ARMcapabilities. In some embodiments, the components of telephone 60 mayuse dedicated hardware and DSP firmware to help provide advancedfunctionality.

Platform 60 may be communicatively coupled to an application engine 74,which could be, for example, a Dragonball processor, and a power circuit76, which may manage among other things a battery circuit 78. In someembodiments, battery circuit 78 may keep track of the power availablefrom battery 80.

Application engine 74 may be communicatively coupled to severaldifferent components and may provide those components with additionalprocessing capabilities. Example components may include a local area RFtransceiver 82, which may be Bluetooth-enabled, Wi-Fi enabled, etc.Other components might be an image sensor 84, memory module 86, andperipheral controller 88, which may manage keypad, LCD, CODEC, IrDA, andother functionality. One skilled in the art will recognize that the manyof the above described components could be combined or broken out intoother combinations and that the memory could include onboard and addedmemory components including RAM, Flash, smart media, and others.

Although the present invention has been described in detail, it shouldbe understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations to thedevices, methods, and other aspects and techniques of the presentinvention can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention as defined by the appended claims.

While the present invention has been described with respect to a limitednumber of embodiments, those skilled in the art will appreciate numerousmodifications and variations therefrom. It is intended that the appendedclaims cover all such modifications and variations as fall within thetrue spirit and scope of this present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system, comprising: a surveillance systemcomponent that includes a speaker assembly, an image capturing device,and a transceiver; the speaker assembly configured to output a soundrepresenting a spoken message input at a remote handheld deviceexecuting a controller application that was previously downloaded from aserver environment via an over the air delivery; the transceiverconfigured to output image data representing images captured by theimage capturing device; and a non-transitory storage medium storinginstructions for execution by a wireless telephone, the instructionscomprising the controller application and operable when executed tofacilitate: (1) receipt by the wireless telephone of the image data; (2)simultaneous presentation by the wireless telephone of a sourceidentifier associated with the image capturing device and a secondsource identifier associated with a second image capturing device; (3)presentation by the wireless telephone of a first image based on theimage data from the image capturing device and a second image based onsecond image data from the second image capturing device; and (4)inputting of a sound at the wireless telephone to be output by thespeaker assembly.
 2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a secondsurveillance system component that comprises the second image capturingdevice.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the transceiver is a wirelesstransceiver compliant with an 802.11 communication specification.
 4. Thesystem of claim 1, further comprising the wireless telephone, whereinthe wireless telephone comprises the non-transitory storage medium andis operable as the remote handheld device.
 5. The system of claim 1,further comprising the server environment that is accessible using HTTPand configured to facilitate an over the air downloading of applicationsto a plurality of remotely located wireless telephones, wherein theserver environment comprises the non-transitory storage medium.
 6. Thesystem of claim 5, wherein the instructions representing the controllerapplication are further operable when executed to facilitate a remotecontrolling of an appliance.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein theinstructions representing the controller application compriseinstructions to generate an icon to be presented on a display of thewireless telephone, wherein a selection of the icon at the wirelesstelephone causes a launching of the controller application at thewireless telephone.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein the instructionsrepresenting the controller application comprise instructions tofacilitate an emailing of image data.
 9. A system, comprising: anelectronic device configured to be powered by a power source, theelectronic device having associated components that are also powered bythe power source, the associated components including a speakerassembly, an image capturing device, and a transceiver; the speakerassembly configured to output a sound representing a spoken messageinput at a remote handheld wireless device executing a locally storedcontroller application; the transceiver configured to communicate imagedata representing images captured by the image capturing device; and acollection of instructions comprising the controller application, thecollection of instructions configured for execution by a wirelesstelephone and stored in a non-transitory storage medium, the collectionof instructions operable when executed to facilitate: (1) receipt by thewireless telephone of the image data; (2) presentation by the wirelesstelephone of a first image based on the image data from the imagecapturing device; and (3) inputting of a sound at the wireless telephoneto be output by the speaker assembly.
 10. The system of claim 9, furthercomprising a second electronic device having its own image capturingdevice and its own transceiver, wherein its own transceiver is operableto communicate other image data representing an image captured by itsown image capturing device and the instructions for execution by thewireless telephone are operable when executed to facilitate: (1) receiptby the wireless telephone of the other image data; and (2) asimultaneous displaying of the first image and a second image that isbased on the other image data.
 11. The system of claim 9, wherein thetransceiver is a wireless transceiver compliant with an 802.11communication specification.
 12. The system of claim 9, furthercomprising the wireless telephone, wherein the wireless telephonecomprises the non-transitory storage medium.
 13. The system of claim 9,further comprising a server environment that is accessible using HTTPand configured to facilitate an over the air downloading of applicationsto a plurality of remotely located wireless telephones, wherein theserver environment comprises the non-transitory storage medium.
 14. Thesystem of claim 9, wherein the instructions representing the controllerapplication are further operable when executed to facilitate a remotecontrolling of a zoom capability of the image capturing device.
 15. Thesystem of claim 9, wherein the instructions representing the controllerapplication comprise instructions to generate an icon to be presented ona display of the wireless telephone, wherein a selection of the icon atthe wireless telephone causes a launching of the controller applicationat the wireless telephone.
 16. The system of claim 9, wherein theinstructions representing the controller application compriseinstructions to facilitate an emailing of image data.
 17. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the power source is local to the electronic device. 18.A system, comprising: an electronic device configured to be powered by apower source, the electronic device having associated components thatare also powered by the power source, the associated componentsincluding a remote controllable mechanism and a wireless transceiver;the wireless transceiver configured to receive data representing acommand that was sent from a remote handheld device executing acontroller application stored locally at the remote handheld deviceafter being previously downloaded from a server environment via an overthe air delivery; and a collection of instructions comprising thecontroller application, the collection of instructions configured forexecution by a wireless telephone and stored in a non-transitory storagemedium, the collection of instructions operable when executed tofacilitate: (1) presentation of an icon on a display of the wirelesstelephone, wherein a selection of the icon at the wireless telephonecauses a launching of the controller application at the wirelesstelephone; (2) inputting of a command at the wireless telephone that isintended to control an operation of the electronic device, wherein theinputting occurs via a touch screen of the wireless telephone; and (3)initiating a wireless outputting of the command from the wirelesstelephone.
 19. The system of claim 18, wherein the non-transitorystorage medium is a component of the server environment, which isaccessible using HTTP and configured to facilitate over the airdownloading of various applications to a plurality of remotely locatedwireless telephones.
 20. The system of claim 18, further comprising: theremote handheld device, wherein the remote handheld device is thewireless telephone and the non-transitory storage medium is a memorycomponent of the wireless telephone; and wherein the electronic deviceis selected from a group consisting of a toy automobile, a toy airplane,a toy helicopter, a toy boat, a toy submarine, a toy animal, a toyrobot, a kitchen appliance, an household appliance, a consumerelectronic equipment, a stereo component, a television component, avehicle, an automobile, and a surveillance system component.